Thirty five

EVE'S POV 

After the incident with Claire, Mr Gray stopped making advances towards me. He no longer called me to his office frequently or offered to help me with my work. This convinced me that he had given up, and I was finally able to relax fully.

But now, it caught me by surprise when he approached me one evening after work and asked me to join him to have dinner with a client.

 My heart.sank as I realised that he had not given up. Instead, he had been biding his time.

"I'm sorry, but I cant join you," I rejected his invitation politely, hoping he would let it go. 

I gathered my stuff into my bag, wanting to make an escape quickly. But Mr Gray stepped in my way.

 "You should come with me, Ms Luciano. I want to introduce some resources that can help you a lot here at work”,

"Thank you for the consideration, but I really can not go with you. I have urgent matters to attend to, so I have to leave right away", I told him.

"Do you think I wasted my time coming here to ask you to come with me because I have nothing better to do?" he asked, his tone becoming stern.

His sudden change in demeanour surprised me, and I clutched my bag tightly.

 "l am your senior, and if l ask you to come with me to meet a client, you should come. I have even told you that this meeting can benefit you in your work. What do you have to do that's more important than your job?",

I swallowed hard.

 "I.."

"It's either you come with me or lose your job," he said resolutely.

 "If you think you can do whatever you want, then I guess you have no place in this company”,

"I'll come with you", I told him, having no other choice. 

It was just dinner. I wasn't going to risk my job because of this.

Mr Gray nodded curtly. 

"Wait for me, we'll leave shortly”,

********************

When we got to the restaurant we were meeting the client at. Mr Gray led me to a private room.

The moment I stepped inside, however, I wondered whether we had gone into the wrong room. This didn't look like the kind of setting I was expecting for dinner with a client. 

There were several men in the room, all sitting with skimpily-dressed women in their arms.

I stopped in my tracks and took a step back.

"What is this?", I asked.

Mr Gray wrapped his hand around my arm and pulled me forward.

 "Come inside" he told me.

I tried to remove my arm from his grip forcefully, but his grip was too strong.

 "This does not look like a client dinner",

No, in fact, I was sure it wasn't. This was just a private room full of men entertaining themselves with the women in their company. I was positive that the director had lied to me about a dinner with a client just to bring me here.

While we had been making our way to the restaurant, I had cheered herself up with the fact that we would be in the company of the client, so Mr Gray wouldn't try anything Inappropriate. 

 In such a setting, I would have found a way to get through the evening without engaging his ulterior motive. But now, in this setting, there was no telling what his plans were.

"Tonight we'll have fun, just you and me," he told me, leaning in close to my ear. His voice and his breath disgusting me and causing my stomach to turn.

Now that he had revealed his true intentions, I fought him without holding back. 

"I don't want to be here," I said loudly, 

"let me go back”,

"Do you want us to go somewhere more private?", he asked, walking further into the room and dragging me with him.

 "I wanted to spend some quality time with you, anyway”, he added.

"Let go of me!", I screamed, digging my nails into his hand. 

At that moment, the door opened and a waitress stepped in, carrying a tray of drinks. 

As she placed them on the table, l addressed her. 

"Please call the security, this man is harassing me!",

The waitress only gave me a cursory look before walking out of the room. I was completely shocked that she hadn't bothered to help me, and that's when it truly sunk in me that Mr Gray had brought me to a shady place to take advantage of me.

My panic grew as he continued dragging me towards another door and none of the other occupants of the room paid attention to my plight. They were all busy drinking alcohol and laughing as they cuddled their partners.

 Tears welled in my eyes and spilled onto my cheeks as I realised that no one was coming to my aid.

"Where are you taking me?", I demanded.

"l already told you"' he said, finally getting to the door and wrenching it open. 

"Somewhere we can be alone", he said.

When he had the door open, he jerked my arm roughly and pushed me forward, forcing me to stumble into the next room. 

My fear tripled as I saw the bed in the room. Mr Gray closed the door behind him and leered at me, reaching up to loosen his tie.

"You have been avoiding me at work, haven't you? Acting like you are too good for me. Let's see about that now;" he said, taking slow steps towards her.

l shook my head, determined to fight ny way through. I wiped the tears beneath my eyes and shook my head. 

"I have no idea what you are talking about",

He let out an evil laugh that made me skin

crawl.

 "Don't pretend to be innocent, I made it quite obvious that I wanted you. That stupid bitch almost ruined everything with her loud mouth, but finally, here we are. I dont have to wait anymore”,

"I'll report you", I threatened, taking a step back to create more distance between us. 

"If you do anything to me, I'll make sure to report you to HR…",

He cackled as he released his sleeve cuffs.

 "Who will believe you? You are just the newbie who has been involved with rumours about her promiscuous nature from the moment you stepped foot into that company. I have been with the company for many years, and I can easily make everyone believe that you're making false accusations because I refused to sleep with you for favours at work",

Listening to his words, tears of frustration fell down my cheeks as I realised he was right. Nobody would believe my word over the word of a department director.

"You have already come with me this far" he told her.

 "So let's get this out of the way. I promise you'll like it",

He took large fast steps towards me, giving me no time to get away. Gripping my arms, he threw me onto the bed. I fell on her back and crawled away from the edge, trying to get to my feet and make a dash for the door. But I got nowhere as he threw his body over mine and reached for my jacket. 

I thrashed beneath him as I tried to topple him while also trying to keep him from removing my jacket. 

A sob escaped my throat as I realised how much stronger he was than me.

Mr Gray put all his focus on getting rid of my jacket, make me wish I had worn a dress instead of a pantsuit. My jacket was a small obstacle in his path. No matter how much I tried to push him away or cried, he wasn't going to let me go until he got what he wanted.

When it proved too troublesome to get rid of my jacket, he gripped my blouse with both hands, intending to tear it open. But before he could, he received a heavy blow to his face that caused him to fall backwards onto the floor.